/lit/ - Literature

In 1775, when the American Revolution was on the verge of breaking out, Samuel Johnson wrote a pamphlet called "Taxation, No Tyranny" in which he defended the British government's behavior towards the American colonists and, essentially, argued that their behavior was totally unjustified.

Since today is Independence Day in the USA, we might as well give it a read:

https://www.samueljohnson.com/tnt.html

You HAVE read the Rambler essays, right, /lit/?

>>21971430
I believe it's in more than one of the early issues of the Rambler. He also talks about it more than once in the conversation that Boswell records in the Life. Basically it's a common sentiment Johnson expresses and you see it more than once throughout his corpus and recorded sayings.

Johnson is awesome. I took a grad school class about him and went from never having heard about him to loving him.

Everyone should read him. Start with the Rambler essays.

I'm actually curious to see what comes of this thread. Just now I was thinking of Worm, which, of course, is infamous as an example of edgy web fiction.

But what are some OTHER examples of significant stories largely confined to the internet? What are some other major examples of web fiction, or just fiction that doesn't really have a print presence, that you have read over the years?

Obviously no fanfiction, original fiction only. I'd love some links to fun stories that people have found online.

I confess my own reading has slowed down considerably as I've become more of a writer. It's a strange thing: the more I actively work on my own writing, the less I read.

More than that, I have found that I enjoy taking books slowly these days. It took me months to get through The Divine Comedy a while ago. Some of it's procrastination, but the rest is just that I don't feel compelled to rush through a book. I like to ruminate on it, digest it, try to come to terms with it slowly. I'm not just reading books to read them any more, I did that when I was younger.

Nonetheless, I do worry about the quality of /lit/. This board helped me discover so many great writers I otherwise would not have heard of. I have been here for years and feel compelled to do my part in making sure that new readers can have a good quality of discussion. I need to be working harder in that regard.